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Thursday

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28
Nov 13

To be thankful

I got to sleep in this morning. Woke up with my beautiful wife, who is wonderful in all things, and I am thankful for her company. I had the opportunity to sleep in, and I’m thankful for that. I made her breakfast, and we enjoyed just another taken-for-granted meal as a tiny part of the safest and most abundant food supply chain in the world. And I’m thankful for that.

She made dishes for our dinner. I helped a tiny bit, but she did the most of it. She made an apple pie, the proud daughter of a blue ribbon apple pie baker. I am thankful for delicious family recipes.

I am thankful for my family, which is wide and wonderful. I could not be with them today, but missing them makes you realize all the more how fortunate you are. This is a collage of a few of the important people in my little world.

I am thankful for great colleagues and talented students and a beautiful campus that make a terrific place to work. It is truly an amazing experience and I’m fortunate every day I get to be there.

I am thankful for the news, and all the incredible acts of journalism – big and small – that everyday goes into it. I am critical of it sometimes, because we live in an amazing part of the world where you can do that, and because it sometimes deserves it. I am proud of it because — having worked in that field, and now teaching young people how to work in that industry — I know how challenging and demanding it can be. I know how important it is to our society and I value its role. There’s no understating it. The hard work people in the news game is undervalued and essential. I’m thankful for all of it.

I am thankful for Allie, The Black Cat, who gives us a lot of entertainment and affection, and only demands your every waking moment that she wants, in return.

I am thankful for my view from here. I’m thankful that I got to ride today. It was 48 degrees, but I got in 27 miles. I had dead legs and a slow pace. Eventually my legs were so cold I wondered if I could keep turning them over. That is cold enough, thanks, but it was a great ride. I am thankful for that.

Because it gives me views like this one:

I am thankful for friends, a new one we had dinner with tonight, and a peaceful evening of fun. I am thankful for the dog that fell asleep next to me and the cat who refused to let me stand up and leave at the end of the night.

It was a fine night, which followed a fine day full of thankful things, big and small.

I am pleased to know that being thankful is to appreciate what you have and not long for what you want.

Happy Thanksgiving to you. I hope you have had a wonderful day.

I did not write about meetings

Coca-Cola is getting set to dump press releases. They’ve found something better. Brand journalism, of which I approve, as it can be a powerful tool when used correctly. As this Ragan piece demonstrates, there is a paradigm shift coming:

Perhaps you caught the story in Mashable, The Daily Mail, Adweek, or The Huffington Post.

Coca-Cola’s Singapore team designed a novel double can that
splits into two, so customers can share the fizzy beverage with a friend.

Fantastic PR. But one major reason it got so much play was “because we covered it,” says Ashley Brown, who leads digital communications and social media for The Coca-Cola Company.

The rest of the piece is worth reading, do check it out if you are interested in journalism, public relations or marketing.

Here’s something of an example at Auburn:

Nosa Eguae just graduated with his first degree and his pursuing a second while finishing up his playing days terrorizing quarterbacks. The guy is 22, telling you the children are our future. Here you see him away from the field, the roaring crowd and the mixed life of a student/celebrity, like he is pretty much everywhere in town.

Auburn’s athletic department is putting considerable resources toward telling stories like this, humanizing the young man behind the face mask:

I shot that of him at an equestrian meet last year.

Every team has at least a handful or more of hardworking, successful on-and-off-the field people like Eguae. We should see more of the great stories our institutions are producing in the young men and women that attend there. This is one of the great victories a university can demonstrate to the world, after all.

(Samford does a good job of this, too. They have an incredibly strong social media presence and interaction with all of the university’s various stakeholders. Freshmen are published on the university’s home page. The athletes are widely accessible. There’s even a reality show being shot on campus by the students in our department. There are plans in place to expand on those efforts, too.)

Here is the other side of the “branded” coin. One must find the right balance of telling stories to your multiple audiences and working alongside the traditional (and nontraditional) media. No one has arrived at a formula for this, but you have to develop a deft touch. Otherwise, you might hear about it, as you’ll see in the first of these two quick links:

Photojournalists want better access to the White House

Obama’s Image Machine: Monopolistic Propaganda Funded by You

Cyborg Journalists: How Google Glass Can Change Journalism

And, finally, this: When an artist allowed her 4-year-old daughter to finish her drawings, something awesome happened. Great art there.

And that’s enough for one night. I’m tuckered.

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14
Nov 13

Now with more JCVD

Thursdays. Better than Wednesdays. Not quite Fridays.

Give it this, if I go down a flight of stairs from my office on a Thursday afternoon, you’d think all of the world has been called home for salvation. There is something about a Thursday afternoon that empties out the central building on campus. It is peaceful, in a bewildering sort of way.

I was all prepared to be dreary about the entire day. It has been cold this week, clear, but cold. So I have been cold. And that gets a little less fun every time. But the sun has been out at times. And now it is getting warmer. And we’re looking at around 70 for the weekend. So that makes things better.

Also, Jean-Claude Van Damme:

It was, as you might imagine, a tough sell, even to a movie hero:

What this commercial really says, you might think, is “I’m ready for my comeback, world.” But JCVD never really left. He’s in a new movie due out next year, which will be his 13 this decade.

Things to read …

‘Gloves come off’ as journalists debunk each other’s Obamacare horror stories. When you are down to the “fact checkers fact checking the fact checkers” story you know you’re getting somewhere:

In the not-so-distant past, mainstream news organizations generally avoided direct criticism of their competitors’ journalism. While it wasn’t unusual for newspapers and broadcasters to follow up on other organizations’ reporting – and sometimes find errors in those earlier stories — such matters traditionally were handled relatively politely.

“Sometimes we would say, ‘Contrary to reports published elsewhere,’ ” recalled Hiltzik, a 40-year newspaper veteran.

But Hiltzik no longer sees the need for such restraint when calling out competing news organizations. As he sees it, the media now promote their stories more loudly, and some organizations tinge them with partisan politics.

“That’s an invitation for the gloves to come off,” he said. “If CNBC is crowing about discovering something and we know they haven’t discovered anything, we should say so.”

Mainstream news organizations’ newfound aggression in fact-checking their fellow journalists may also be a reaction to the rise of websites that offer critiques of the media’s political coverage. Sites such as the liberal Media Matters for America and the conservative Newsbusters helped carve out a new type of media analysis that’s constantly rebutting and fact-checking individual news stories, talk-show interviews, and other political-related content.

Traditional news organizations that delve into media commentary often find it’s popular with readers.

And there it is. The other guy is biased, and my audience likes when I point that out.

For the record, I’m all for peer review and fact checking in general.

Remember when Boston stood for something? Blogger threatened with 10-year prison sentence for posting public official’s phone number. A journalism student recorded and published a portion of a phone call with a police department PIO. That individual — filed a criminal complaint. The details of which would seem to refute her complaint under Massachusetts law. A blogger caught the story and published this … ahem … public servant’s public phone number on his site. Now she’s pressing charges against him:

An outraged Miller blogged about the incident. “Maybe we can call or e-mail Richardson to persuade her to drop the charges against Hardy considering she should assume all her conversations with reporters are on the record unless otherwise stated,” Miller wrote, providing readers with Richardson’s work phone number.

That produced still more calls to Richardson’s work phone. Apparently, the calls alarmed Richardson, because last week Miller received notice about another application for a criminal complaint. This one accused Miller of witness intimidation, a crime that carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

“I’ve never spoken once to Angeline Richardson, who I’m supposedly intimidating,” Miller says. “I’ve never sent her an e-mail, never made a phone call.” And he says that there’s been no allegations that his readers have threatened Richardson.

People are being threatened by police for sharing already publicly available information. And this is in modern Boston, the incubator of freedom, making all of this even dumber than it should be on its own merits.

(UPDATE: The complaints have rightly been dropped.)

This is a good story and a brilliant design by the folks at New York Times Magazine. Read it on a computer, not a phone or tablet: A Game of Shark and Minnow. This may be one of those pieces you can refer to in layout sessions, or at cocktail parties when you need to one up the new guy.

This family has had 34 foster kids in their home. And now they’re holding a 5K awareness event. Some kind of story.

And then there’s this quote, “It’s a hard thing for your heart when they go home, but it’s an incredible blessing for your family and to a community that will open their homes and hearts to do that. We’re honored to be a part of it.”

But the quote of the day award, if there was such a thing, goes to this nice lady on Humans of New York.

Curiously, that’s the same thing Jean-Claude Van Damme said before that video.

journalism / links / photo / Samford / things to read / Thursday — Comments Off
7
Nov 13

Over the river, through the woods

You’re always so cynical about the maple trees. They’re full and verdant and prolific. Their shoots can only barely be controlled. The leaves, on the ground, are a big hassle. And you’re always cutting back the branches. Oh they give great shade. So good even the grass won’t grow in spots underneath that lush, cool canopy.

For all of that, you just know they’ll be the first ones to give the great heave, the shrug of the shoulders and the big sneezing sigh that means hours of rake time.

And yet, for now, they’re still hanging on:

But those are at home. This is one of our views on campus, looking from Samford’s Centennial Walk up to Shades Mountain:

I get to work at a beautiful place.

After the links you’ll find some nice pictures. So scroll on down if you aren’t interested in today’s collection of extra words.

Things to read …

Remember when the government encouraged you to go to transfat? Never mind.

Heart-clogging trans fats were once a staple of the American diet, plentiful in baked goods, microwave popcorn and fried foods. Now, mindful of the health risks, the Food and Drug Administration is getting rid of what’s left of them for good.

Condemning artificial trans fats as a threat to public health, the FDA announced Thursday it will require the food industry to phase them out.

When in doubt, never forget that someone in Washington knows more about what is good for you than you do.

Right?

“I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me,” the president told Chuck Todd of NBC News during an interview at the White House.

I liked the part where he said the whole thing burned him — err, the American people. The guy just can’t help himself.

I really, really, hope this gets soundly refuted:

Reporters with the Society of American Business Editors and Writers received “training” on how to cover Obamacare’s rollout from a policy expert who works with President Obama’s former health information technology adviser.

Otherwise what you’re saying is that, essentially, government is telling you how to report on the government. Debacle or not, that would be embarrassing and should be more than a small problem for journalism. So I hope it gets convincingly refuted.

Quick links:

Grants topping $800,000 aimed at creating jobs, improving economy in Alabama’s Black Belt

NPR’S Brian Boyer on building and managing news apps teams

Study: 96% of UK journalists use social media every day

Internet Kills the Video Store

Made it to my grandmother’s, just in time for a few twilight pictures:

More stuff tomorrow. And by stuff I mean the big family present I’ve been alluding to for days. Come read all about it!

cycling / movies / photo / Thursday / video — Comments Off
31
Oct 13

The non-Halloween post

The neighboring yard has a red maple. Shot this this evening:

Had the opportunity to ride a few hills before it got dark today. It was misting and sprinkling a bit, a few hours before the meteorologists said it should. Perhaps this kept away the early trick-or-treaters. I didn’t see any while I was riding. I was the only person in a costume, a sorry cyclist huffing up little hills. The trick was on me.

Watched Oz the Great and Powerful, where James Franco was dressed up as an actor.

This explains that:

Because Time Warner owns the rights to iconic elements of the 1939 MGM film, including the ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland, Disney was unable to use them nor any character likenesses from that particular film. This extended to the green of the Wicked Witch’s skin, for which Disney used what its legal department considered a sufficiently different shade called “theostein” (a portmanteau of “Theodora” and “Frankenstein”). The studio could not, however, use the signature chin mole of Margaret Hamilton’s portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West.

It was a fine movie. You can see the 3D elements, even on your TV, which is to say the many obligatory things that are rushing out of the screen to “immerse” you into the film. The poster probably read “Some of the effects are better than others.” It was a kids’ film, and it plays that way. But it was humorous if you’re in a light mood, and Franco inhabited the role, as they might say. He’s laughing all the way to the bank.

You know, there are many adaptations of the Oz universe, but this one makes less sense than most. Some could exist in their own universe, like The Wiz, for example. Others, like the Muppets and animated versions, were just cashing in with other franchises or audiences. Great and Powerful, though, has allusions to the popular 1939 Judy Garland version (which was not the first Oz on screen) despite a different company owning the rights, as discussed above. So if you assume this one is referring to the Judy Garland-universe of Oz then it is something of a prequel. A prequel of her concussion-induced dreams about a place and people that didn’t exist.

OR DID THEY?

You’d think, more than 80 years on, we’d have some answer to that question.

And so it begins: the annual Parade of Sullen Ingratitude.

— James Lileks (@Lileks) October 31, 2013

We didn’t do Halloween tonight. Singlehandedly we are responsible for the poor candy sales this year.

It is a good neighborhood, though, none of the little ghouls and princesses had to go without. Kids have their parents drive from the next town over to case this subdivision. Apparently all of the good candy comes from our nearby grocery store.

So we left off the lights and sat in the back of the house, hiding from the children, of whom we were not scared.

After an appropriate amount of time I went out to pick up some dinner at the Chinese restaurant of choice. The owner knows us by name now.

When I returned home there was a clutch — Or was it a gaggle? The costumes make it hard to tell. — patrolling down the street. I swept into the garage before the door was all the way up the rails. Waited until the kids were out of sight before I turned on the lights in the kitchen.

We’re not scared of those kids.

I got my fill of the costumed little ones on Facebook. This is, for my money, the best day of the year on that site. One guy has a boy and a girl. He posted their front door shot and their Halloween conversation.

“What do you want to dress up as for Halloween?”

“A fairy princess butterfly! … (Pause for dramatic effect.) And he could be a dead butterfly!”

So, he concluded, in the spirit of keeping his son alive, he went as a miniature John Wayne.

Another lady has two little boys, who dressed as Luke and Yoda — green knit cap with great ears, felt feet already rolling up on his shoes. The youngest said his “lightsaver” was the best part.

Now I feel like I have to go pick up candy to go give those children. But I saw the pictures. They cleaned up.